Europe, Headlines, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa

RIGHTS: Accused Terrorist Sues Norway

Tarjei Kidd Olsen

OSLO, Aug 27 2008 (IPS) - The co-founder of a suspected al-Qaeda linked militant group in Iraq who lived a double life as a refugee in Norway’s capital Oslo is suing Norway for violating his rights.

The bizarre saga began when Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad, better known as Mullah Krekar, fled an onslaught by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1991.

Krekar, who had been a member of a Kurdish Islamist militant group battling both the Iraqi regime and the largest Kurdish resistance organisation Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), arrived in Norway, where he was granted refugee status.

So far so good, but Krekar did not rest on his laurels, according to the U.S., and officials in Kurdish Iraq. Instead, they say, he returned to Iraq on several occasions during the 1990s to help support Islamic militant organisations. Then, in 2001, he co-founded the radical Salafist group Ansar-al-Islam, which ruled according to a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law in the villages it controlled.

Ansar-al-Islam is the organisation that former U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell told the United Nations provided an operational link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. Such an operational link has later been denied both by former CIA director George Tenet and the 9/11 Commission, among others, although some contact may have existed.

The U.S. and others say there is evidence linking Ansar-al-Islam to al-Qaeda, including claims that it helped former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, enter the country.

It has also been accused of masterminding several attacks against Kurdish officials in 2001 and 2003, including suicide bombings, although U.S. allegations that Krekar personally ordered suicide bombings and controlled a chemical weapons factory have never been proven.

Ansar-al-Islam was designated a terrorist organisation by the U.S. in 2004, and Krekar was put on a U.N. sanctions list for his alleged al-Qaeda affiliations in 2006 (reportedly under U.S. pressure).

How, then, has Krekar managed to escape the clutches of the Guantanamo Bay prison – or at least a Norwegian jail cell – and instead court the tabloids in Oslo and even find the time to release an autobiography titled ‘In My Own Words’ in 2004? If a 2006 article in the newspaper Washington Post is to be believed, it is not for lack of trying by the U.S.

The article claims the U.S. sent undercover CIA agents to Oslo to abduct Krekar in 2003 – with quiet acquiescence by the Norwegian government – only weeks after completing another ‘extraordinary rendition’ of a Muslim cleric in Milan, Italy, who later said he was sent to Egypt to be tortured. However, Krekar’s lawyer was tipped off by an anonymous Norwegian government source, and a police guard was arranged.

The previous year Krekar was arrested in the Netherlands when returning to Norway from Iraq. The Dutch authorities said he was wanted for extradition to Jordan on drugs charges. However, his lawyers said the charges were trumped up by the U.S., and Krekar was released four months later.

Norway revoked Krekar’s refugee status during his 2002 visit to Iraq, and was none too eager to allow him back into the country after his release by the Netherlands. However, they could find no legal reason to refuse him entry. In 2003 he was arrested as Norway’s financial crimes agency investigated accusations that he had used Norway as a base to finance terrorism, but again the charges did not stick.

Norway also sought to deport Krekar back to northern Iraq in 2003 for allegedly posing a threat to national security. The case did the rounds in the Norwegian courts until 2007, when the High Court confirmed that he could be deported. However, as Norway has a policy of not expelling people to countries where they may be tortured or executed, the ruling has not been carried out, and may not be for a long time.

As a result, Krekar has been trapped in a legal limbo for the past six years.

“He has no identification papers, no freedom of movement and no rights in this country economically or socially speaking. Instead he has been forced into a situation reminiscent of house arrest, without any possibility of for instance earning an income,” his lawyer Brynjar Meling told Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang on Aug. 5. Krekar, he said, has to support his wife and four children.

Meling is helping Krekar file a case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg alleging that Norway has violated the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. According to Meling, this includes charges for “inhuman treatment”.

“I am suing Norway to check whether I have all the rights I am entitled to,” Krekar told the newspaper. “I’m only demanding to get what I am entitled to, and I don’t care how people react.”

As regards the allegations against him, Krekar says that he left Ansar-al-Islam in 2002, and denies that he has ever been involved with any terrorist activities.

Despite the denials, Krekar is not afraid to voice controversial opinions. In 2005 he declared al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Norwegian television “the jewel in the crown of Islam.” The following year he lamented the “bad news” of al-Zarqawi’s death in a U.S. air strike, although he was “proud of what (al-Zarqawi) has done and that he has become a martyr.”

This former refugee and militant leader will be heating tempers in chilly Norway for some time to come.